


Dirt and Roots

by ackermom



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-01 02:05:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11476332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ackermom/pseuds/ackermom
Summary: At some point, he stopped doing everything for Marley and started doing it for Reiner.





	Dirt and Roots

**Author's Note:**

> a love letter to bertholdt. a study in loyalty.

For a moment, Bertholdt feels as if nothing has changed. The soil feels the same beneath his boots. The sun beats down on his back like it used to do. He retraces the dusty path homeward easily, as if walking along the rhythm of his memory, and for a moment, he feels as if he is a child again.

They lived here together all those years, and they never knew each other. He wonders if they ever played together in these alleys, their small feet splashing in the narrow street canals as they chased each other through the crowded neighborhoods. He used to do that with the other kids in his neighborhood, before he left for training. They would gather pebbles along the side of the road, then throw them at flocks of pigeons in the market square and see how many would scatter into the skies. Bertholdt held the record. 

He got whipped across the back of the head when his grandmother found out about that. He can still hear her hissing in his ear, muttering for him to keep himself on the good sides of the taciturn soldiers who watched their antics from their steel towers. Those other children: they were his friends, at least for a while, at least until he passed the warrior exam and left them behind. He wonders if Reiner was ever one of them. 

The gates of Liberio are rusted. He was told years ago that they would be replaced soon, but they looked as tired as ever. They creak open cautiously onto the dirt road that stretches to the other end of the compound and weaves between the flat-roofed buildings, which stand precariously on stacks of crooked stones. Laundry lines zip between the apartments; the linens they bear sway gently in the wind that whistles through the alleyways, and it creates a dancing spectacle for the children gathered on the street beneath. They have stones tucked in the pockets of their smocks, and Bertholdt wonders if he was ever that small.

Reiner leads as they walk into town, their bags slung over their shoulders. Bertholdt follows closely behind. Their feet kick up dust as they walk, and Bertholdt feels like a target, like everyone is watching them as they weave through the narrow streets of the ghetto; but when he looks around, no one has noticed their arrival. No one recognizes them. Life proceeds as usual in Liberio, even for the inconspicuously dressed warriors who wander in its midst. 

Bertholdt steps on Reiner’s heel when he stops suddenly in the middle of the street.

“That’s it,” Reiner says, and nothing more; he raises a silent finger to point. The house that he gestures to is nondescript: just as pale and decrepit as every other shack on the block. But he approaches it with caution and care, his fingers trailing gently up the rusted railing of the steps as he climbs to the front door; the paint on the door is chipped and peeling, but Reiner does not seem to notice. He gives a ginger knock. Bertholdt lingers behind him, uneasy, and when the front door swings open after a long moment, he jumps.

“Mother,” Reiner says.

Bertholdt can barely make out her face from where he stands. But the joy in her voice is enough to tell him everything he needs to know.

“You’ve come home,” she says, her words swelling with pride. “My warrior has come home.” 

\--

The journey rocked them in more ways than one: the rough waves of the sea, sending them tumbling along the dark corridors of the metal ship; the sparse terrain and their unexpected loss so early on; the draining fatigue of transformation, and the dawning horror of the hellscape they had created once they awoke from their titan slumbers. 

They were not the same after that, Reiner most of all. He had lost something in Marcel, something that Bertholdt couldn’t hope to understand, and it seemed as though that loss echoed through all parts of him, tearing him apart limb by limb. He clung to his memories of Marley to keep the pieces of himself together. He whispered fervently to Bertholdt under the cover of darkness about the temptation that surrounded them. He made Bertholdt swear that they would never let themselves be corrupted by these evil souls. Bertholdt swore, but only because Reiner told him to. 

They lived on providence. They hid from crowds and fended for themselves, ever watchful of the devils that strode in their midst. They trained their nimble fingers to steal, and they acclimated themselves to the strange world they had been thrust into: candles, leather, and horseback. They overheard what information they could. They learned everyday, more than they ever had in any classroom. They pumped water from the public well and became familiar with the strange enunciations that surrounded them. They reminded themselves everyday what they were there to do: they were the chosen ones. 

Then Annie left, and things changed. 

They didn’t see her again until they entered training, and just like that, she was there again, kicking their asses like she had done so many times before: a perfect warrior, a proper citizen of the walls. Bertholdt was stunned to see her alive. He had thought her dead, or worse, captured. He had worried night and day that she would be discovered, or that she would compromise their mission. He was overwhelmed to realize her safety. Annie had always been their backbone, the one who slapped them into shape when the world seemed to be too much. To lose her had been to lose a piece of home, a piece of their identity, and Bertholdt had felt their walls crumbling around them. 

Reiner hardly recognized her. 

\-- 

Reiner’s mother doesn’t ask too many questions. She hugs her boy, brings him inside, and sets out a meal for him and his warrior friend. She doesn’t wonder why they are here, where they have been, why they are only two. She’s proud of him, she tells Reiner through tears, and of Bertholdt too; she adds that with a squeeze of his hand across the dinner table, before thanking Marley for the food before them.

Bertholdt wonders what she sees in his eyes, what she means about pride. He wonders until Reiner shows him the baby pictures hanging above the fireplace. He had thought they were Reiner’s. On closer inspection, the little one is a dark-haired babe, Reiner’s cousin: the rising pride and joy of an honorary Marleyan family. She is sure to make her people proud.

(he wants to laugh when Karina calls herself an honorary Marleyan, because exactly what honor has been bestowed upon her? what has she gained from this venture to sacrifice her son? doesn’t she realize the lies she’s been fed? doesn’t she realize they’re planted deep in the roots of her life?)

Reiner whispers to him when they’re alone in the dining room. Bertholdt feels the way Reiner’s hand presses against his waist for a moment, drawing him closer in the evening chill; and he feels the way that hand retreats when Karina calls from the kitchen. They’ve hardly spoken to each other since they left the island: since their train pulled into the Liberio station and two surly plainclothes officers met them at the gates of the compound. There was no need for a grand homecoming, and there won’t be until they have completed their mission. Bertholdt wasn’t expecting to see Liberio so soon again. They only came back to Marley to deliver their hostage, but Zeke took one look at Reiner and gave them leave to visit their families: to remind themselves of their purpose.

\-- 

Bertholdt once thought he knew everything. He bore the power of a god in his veins, and it rushed to his heart, to his brain, until he thought himself a god. He thought he was a proud warrior of Marley, an invincible titan, a hero to his people. He thought he and the others would complete their mission without a fight. He thought they would defeat the demons within the walls. He thought he would save his family.

He knows now that he was just a child. 

He was selfish and ignorant; to think that he ever believed what he had been spoon-fed in training is unimaginable now. He would have continued to believe it too, had it not been for Reiner. If Reiner hadn’t forgotten who he was, if Reiner hadn’t compromised their mission with his sentimentality, if Reiner hadn’t-

At some point, he stopped doing everything for Marley and started doing it for Reiner. 

\--

Karina’s curiosity gets the better of her, and she asks about Marcel and Annie. 

“The nice Galliard boy,” she says, “and that pretty girl from the other side of the river.”

They say nothing.

“You know we can’t talk about it, Mom,” Reiner says.

He stokes the fire at his mother’s feet, ever the diligent son. He pours her evening tea and brings her a shawl when she gets cold. He sits beside her, turned towards her, as if they don’t know how to break open to let in a third person. Bertholdt feels out of place in this small house; their conversation carries on like he’s not even there.

“We’re not done with the mission,” Reiner says. “We’re on leave.”

He speaks so cryptically.  _We’re on leave_ , he says, as if that means anything more to his mother than saying nothing at all. But she takes his ambiguity without question and washes it down with that last dregs of her tea. 

“You know you can’t say anything about this to Mrs. Galliard,” Reiner says later in the kitchen. His voice is low, but Bertholdt hears him from out in the hall, the stranger lurking in their familiar house. His mother is washing the teacups with care; when Reiner speaks, the water runs still. 

“You know you can’t tell her that we were here. You know that it’s classified.”

“Of course, I know,” she says, and the scrubbing continues. 

The silence that follows seals Marcel’s fate. 

\--

Bertholdt told himself he wouldn’t give in to the temptations of Paradis, he wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t give in; and it worked until he was fifteen and his best friend was his bunkmate and their hands wandered on an autumn afternoon until their hands could wander no more. He never knew it could feel so good to be kissed, to have someone’s lips pressed against yours and their fingers sliding beneath the waist of your pants. He never knew until Reiner kissed him, and then he knew very well.

Reiner’s elbows left imprints in the mattress when he pulled away, pressing a few last kisses to the corner of Bertholdt’s mouth as he muttered about going to wash his hands. He disappeared out the back, the door clattering shut in his wake, and Bertholdt collapsed back in their bunk, wiping the sweat from his forehead. 

“You shouldn’t get involved,” a sullen voice said from below. 

Bertholdt jerked upright, hissing as he fumbled with his belt strap. “Annie,” he exclaimed, startled, then horrified; his face grew hot. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d remind you,” she said. She leaned against the post of his bunk, her arms crossed. Her eyes glimmered in the afternoon light, and she glowered up at him from beneath the long wisps of her golden hair. “You shouldn’t get involved with your comrades.”

He could have said the same for her, after that shit she pulled in the training grounds a few weeks ago. But he kept that simmering low, saved it for another argument, and hissed, “We’re not involved.”

“That looked pretty involved to me. I was waiting outside to tell you something, but I thought I could hear your voices, so I came in, and, well-”

“How long have you been here?!”

“Long enough to know that you’re even more of an idiot than I thought you were,” Annie said. She stepped forward, grabbing the sides of the wooden bunk ladder, one boot hooked on the lowest rung, as if she were going to climb to meet him; but she stayed there, merely drawing herself up higher. 

“His loyalty is the only thing he’s got going for him,” Annie said, “and if that ever wavers-”

“What?” Bertholdt exclaimed, scoffing. “You’ll take him out?”

Her eyes beamed. “Someone will.”

She dropped off the ladder and turned away. “Look, you and I both know that his place has already messed him up pretty bad. The last thing I need is for you to put any more ideas in his head.”

“Don’t lecture me,” Bertholdt muttered. He leapt down the bunk and stalked past her on his way out the back door. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

\--

It’s midnight, and he lets Reiner kiss him. He lets Reiner drag his fingers through his hair, dance his lips across his jaw, murmur against his skin, before he turns him away.

“We shouldn’t,” Bertholdt says. 

Reiner’s childhood bed is impossibly small for the both of them, so there’s a cot rolled out on the floor for Bertholdt, topped with handsewn pillow and a thin quilted blanket. Reiner has dragged him onto the bed anyways, where they sit in silence now, as Bertholdt wrangles himself out of Reiner’s grasp.

“Tonight’s our only night at home,” Reiner says. 

Bertholdt kisses his forehead and slips off the bed to lie in his cot. 

“I know,” he says as he collapses back against the thin pillow. “But I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I just want to go to sleep. I don’t want to ruin my last night in Liberio.”

He doesn’t mean to say that, and he’s sure that Reinre knows what he means. But Reiner is on the floor anyways, suddenly beside him, his knees pressing into the thin cot as he grabs Bertholdt by the shoulders and glares deep into his eyes. 

“It’s not your last night in Liberio.”

“I know, Reiner. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“But you said it.”

The light in Reiner’s eyes is desperate and angry. Bertholdt doesn’t know who he’s mad at- if it’s him or something else- but he pushes him away, a little too forcefully, and watches that anger fade to dejection. 

“I was thinking about Ymir,” Bertholdt says, and how they turned her in like a stray dog. “That’s all I meant.”

Reiner sits back on his heels, quiet. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You know she’s going to die, right? If not tonight, then tomorrow.”

“It’s too soon. She just got here.”

“Galliard’s not going to let her wait any longer.”

“It’s not up to him. The council doesn’t care about his opinion.”

“They care that she stole one of our warriors,” Bertholdt says, turning away, “and he’s willing and ready. It’s not hard to put two and two together.”

They go to sleep in silence after that, each confined to their own bed. Bertholdt wishes to every god he knows that he could wake up next to Reiner tomorrow morning, their hearts beating together; he loves the way the sunrise looks in Reiner’s eyes. But he remains stubbornly in his cot on the floor, cold and alone. He shivers as he watches Reiner fall asleep, watches the deep rise and fall of his chest as he drifts away, watches the way one of his arms falls off the bed as if he is reaching out for Bertholdt. 

Bertholdt aches so much that he nearly grabs the hand. He knows it will be warm and familiar. But he’s not sure he recognizes the boy it belongs to, the boy sleeping in that bed, so he tucks his arms underneath the blanket and lets himself fall asleep.

\--

He watched Reiner change over the years. He watched that boy learn to shoot, to fight, to survive. He watched him suffer and starve and thrive. He watched him lose the edge in his eyes and grow softer in his smile. He held his hand in the darkness and had his back under the sun, ever faithful, ever a companion. He loved him and he let himself believe that he was loved back.

He’s watching him change again now. He’s different. Their last battle: it broke him. They failed their mission, they lose their prize, and they returned home with a runaway instead. He sees the Reiner that he used to know when he looks in his eyes now. He sees the Reiner from his childhood. He wonders if Reiner has forgotten who he became. 

He wonders if Reiner knows how much Bertholdt misses his smile. 

\--

“This can’t change anything, you know,” Reiner says when he closes the front door. His mother is watching them from the window, her face half-hidden behind the tattered curtains as she prays for their success.

Bertholdt looks up. “What?”

“Our return to Liberio can’t change anything,” Reiner says. “We still have to dedicate ourselves to the mission.”

“I know,” Bertholdt says. He follows Reiner down the street, his bag heaved over his shoulder. “You know that too, right?”

Reiner doesn’t turn around. “I’ve always known.”

They pass the Galliard family house on their way out of the compound. Reiner barrels past, his gaze focused, forward. Bertholdt nearly stops. But he sees a pair of eyes watching him from an upstairs window, and he scurries after Reiner. 


End file.
